


Look what You Made Me Do

by karrenia_rune



Category: Clue (1985)
Genre: Episode: s03e06 Real Estate, Gen, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Comments: 6
Kudos: 5
Collections: Limited Theatrical Release 2020





	Look what You Made Me Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



There is a manor house upon a hill that her parents never speak of and she wonders why whenever she brings up the subject they look away or deflect the question. At other times, one or both would pretend to not have heard or been too busy. 

Granted, she's looked up the property on-line and in the real estate listings and its a not-that attractive piece architecture with dormers and gables that are just a touch too sharp, ceilings a touch too high and wood paneling that is just a hair too dark. 

However, Joanie thinks that any real-estate worth their salt could correct these faults with effort. After all, with a will, there's a way.  
That was before she actually went out to visit the place. 

The long and winding gravel drive has seen better days because even through the windows of Model T Ford, fresh off the dealership; she can see that the weeds are breaking on through the asphalt, concrete, and stone.

In the back of her mind, Joanie adds this to the ever-growing list of things that require attention before the property can be listed. 

She remembers her colleagues in the industry mentioning that the previous owners kept Dobermans as guard dogs and brings her call to a halt, kills the engine and gets out she briefly wonders about the attendant problems of keeping animals locked up in all sorts of inclement weather. 

Joanie glances up at the sky and feels the first fat, wet drops of rain splatter on her up-turned face. 'Figures, she gripes to herself. It's raining.' She gets her umbrella out and pops it open. She gets to the door and realizes that the key is still under the welcome mat, so she picks it up and lets herself in.

Inside the foyer which is actually not as dilapidated as the exterior would lead one to believe. There are shards of glass oddly enough in the middle of the vast space where the crystal chandelier has crashed to the floor. She gets closer, then she can see where the area is marked off with the tell-tale signs of yellow police tape. "What the hell happened here?" Bits of glass almost get into the sole of her platform shoe: the kind with chunky heels and vibrant colors that her mother wore to all of the charitable donations and senatorial functions that her mother insisted on attending at the side of her United States senator husband. 

Her father isn't a senator anymore. Joanie's mother said the decision had come on the heels of some sort of scandal that occurred before she was born. 

When Joanie had pressed; all her mother would say, as she reached up one hand to press the bridge of her nose and raise up those multi-colored horn-rimmed glasses that she wore all the time until the were so untrendy that she made them trendy; that it had been bad business and complicated, and messy and it was over now. 

Mrs. B had not wanted to get into any of the sordid details but implied that 'bad business' had much to do with her husband's decision to step down from office and go into futures in the stock market.

There has not been anyone living in this house since the early 1950s. A decade later the records indicate that no one house has paid any attention to it since then; so, why does she feel as if she is being watched?

The echoes of the place are a bit unnerving, but this isn't her first odd duck house and she makes her way off the halls and into the lounge. It's actually decently turned out and quite pleasant but why then does she feel a chill breeze? It must be the wind the windows are open and it is still raining outside.  
There is a phonograph on the coffee table that begins playing strands.

Joanie B does not believe in ghosts, the occult, or anything remotely smacking of the supernatural but it sounds just like the music that had been popular in the big band era. She leaves the room quickly and the next thing is she runs smack dab into an apparition. 

It's a police officer, and if not for the fact that she can see right through him, she would have thought he was a real person. 

Not for the first or the last time Joanie "What the hell happened here! Why won't anyone talk about it?" 

The ghost police officer shrugs his sloping grey-black slicker-clad shoulders as if he dearly wishes that he could answer her question but is unable to do, what with being dead and all. The look in his eyes is not remotely foreboding or hostile. and if Joanie B were being honest with herself, she would almost say it was, sad. 

He regards her with a pair of sad, wet puppy-dog eyes and in life, he would be a solid reassuring specimen of a man and law enforcement. Even without words, he seemed to be asking her for help. That could not be, right? Could it?

She tries to go around him, but every move left he goes right, Every move right, he goes left. She tells him, I can't help you, please let me pass!"

Eventually, he does and his said eyes follow her as she moves on deeper into this eerie, old house. She still feels that sense of being watched and its growing stronger which she tries to ignore, but it is getting harder and harder to ignore.

In the billiards room, underneath the table, she finds a noose. She kicks it back under the table.

In the ballroom, she finds a lead pipe and the bloody mangled pieces of a rather expensive and heavy candle-stick. At this point, Joanie's ready to turn back and give this property up for lost. I mean, who in their right mind would want to live here after it seems that the former owners had up and committed suicide?

In the dining room, she finds a manila folder, and inside of it is a wad of cash and a list of names: Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. Peacock, and Professor Plum. It's the second to last one that makes Joanie sit up and take notice. 

The paper the list is written is ragged along the edges as if someone had tried to get rid of it and charred but still legible. There's also a deck of cards with their pictures. Written at the very bottom in a redder ink is one line: "Look what you made me do." "What was Mother doing in this creepy old house?"

She nearly jumps a foot in the air when a voice seemingly comes out of nowhere to answer her question. "At first, we were all brought here to cover up certain indiscretions by a rather unscrupulous individual who had gathered all of our dirty little secrets."

"Who the hell are you?" Joanie demanded.

"Call me Professor Plum. "I've been watching you for some time ever since you arrived actually, and I had wondered what possessed a young lady like you to visit this," he waved a languid hand in the air then continued, 'haunted mansion?"

"Do you mean to tell me it really is haunted. There's no such thing as ghosts." She said even as she recalled that sad-eyed ghost police officer. 

"No, I mean by haunted by memories. Wait, do I know you?" the man who told her to call him Professor Plum asked. "Those eyes and that hair look familiar. He picks up a photograph that resting beside a glass of brandy on the table in front of him. 

"What are you doing with a photograph of my mother?" Joanie demanded, angry now. 

"These aren't mine, they belonged we to the man we all knew only as Mr. Boddy. He's dead now. Thank God, along with his accomplice in that sordid affair. Damn his eyes, Wadsworth!"

"You still haven't answered my question. That's my mother. You have to tell me."

"Do I?" Professor Plum mused with a small half-smile. "Ahh, Mrs. Peacock, she was a right spit-fire. You look a lot like her. The resemblance is uncanny."

"Wonderful, what's going on here?" Joanie demands.

"Did she ever mention me?" he asks instead.

"No, why would she?" Joanie, why this man is here if he had had anything to do with the scandal. Or maybe he is just another unscrupulous individual looking for salacious gossip about the past of this creepy old mansion and had had nothing to do with her mother or her family at all.

"No Reason, No Reason. Is she still married to that senator of hers?"

"You're kind of a creep and yeah, but he's not a senator anymore and this conversation way beyond the pale. Could you give me that photograph of my mother and I'll be going."

"Very well," he added as he handed it over. "I suppose after all this time, a reunion is out of the question. No one would want to unwrap the past that much. It was foolhardy of me coming back here and walking through the halls of memory. Freud would have a field day with this."

"I figure he would, so ah, goodbye and good luck, Professor ah, Plum, I guess you're weird but kind of harmless. Hey, you should go, too, and soon, this place can't be good for anybody's physical or mental health. Just saying."

"Thank you, young lady," Professor Plum recalled, offering her a genuine if somewhat perfunctory smile. "I shall do that." Not that it's any of my business of why you came here. Has anything to do with your mother?"

"It's not, I mean, it's none of your business, but I actually... I mean, I'm a real estate agent and I did my research and I thought that I could sell this place by putting it on the market." "Hmm," Professor Plum mused rubbing his stubbled chin. "Real Estate, who would have thunk. And now that you've seen the place do you still think you could sell it?"

"Not bloody likely."

"An apt phrasing, if ever there was one," he replied. "You should go now. I believe the rain is starting to let up."

As Joanie turned and walked away she saw him take one last gulp of brandy and slump back into his chair. She would leave this eerie, old house, and its sad-eyed souls, both living and dead, and never look back. "Look what you made me do, indeed."


End file.
